


To Sleep, Perchance to Dream (A Good Dream)

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Series: He Calls Me Home [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Minor Character Death, Multi, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5588572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dreams scare Finn because he's not supposed to have them.</p><p>(The one where Finn has nightmares, Rey and Poe are good friends to him, and Poe and Finn consider a better future.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sleep, Perchance to Dream (A Good Dream)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dersteck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dersteck/gifts).



It’s the dreams that scare him the most.

 _Report to conditioning_ , the voice on the overhead says.  Lights are flashing red: _warning, warning, warning_ … Behind him are troopers, shouting and shooting in turns.  He’s been hurt--one of them’s hit him--but he feels no pain, only fear.

 _Traitor_ , the troopers behind him spit.   _Cowardly scum_.  He wants to say no, that’s not him, but it is, so he runs.  He knows this place like the back of his hand, every corridor and hallway, every holding cell and loading bay, but in the time that he spent on Jakku, it’s all been moved around.  He’s lost, and the lights are flashing and the overhead keeps telling him: _Report to conditioning, report to conditioning, report to conditioning_ …

He runs, but he gets nowhere.  Somewhere, Captain Phasma’s preparing the reconditioning chamber.  The Sith, Kylo Ren, he’s roaming the halls, too, looking for a convenient target for all of his rage.

 _Traitor_.  The word hits him like a blaster to the chest and he staggers and falls.  He’s hit a dead end.  There’s nowhere left to run.  He sees a sea of white masks with black eyes taking aim.

* * *

Finn wakes thrashing and groaning.  Above him, Rey looks down with wide eyes.

“Finn?” she asks.  “Finn, it’s all right, it’s all right.”

It takes Finn a long few minutes to get his breathing under control.  They’re on the Millennium Falcon, Finn reminds himself.  They’re far from the Starkiller Base, far from the First Order.  They’re going to meet with the Resistance.  The thought sends a shiver of fear through Finn’s stomach.  Rey’s going to find out.

Rey.  Above him, Rey’s eyes are as wide as dinner plates, and Finn berates himself for putting that look on her face.

“I’ll get Han,” she says, but Finn shakes his head.

“No,” he says, “please.”  Then, as an afterthought, he says, “It was just a bad dream.”

Rey’s not convinced, but she doesn’t leave, either.  He waits for her to ask about the dream, but she just sits, holding her knees.  She left her cot on the other side of the room to help him, Finn realizes.  He woke her up, scared her, and now she feels obligated to stay.

He almost says something, but Rey starts to talk.  She tells him about growing up on Jakku, about the wall that she made, counting the days.  She tells him what she remembers, what she liked and didn’t like, how she learned to read.  When she speaks of reading, her eyes light up just a little, and Finn melts.  She learned off of old machine manuals, instrument panels and other relics of the Empire.  She tells Finn how she would go into the old Walkers and crashed ships looking for parts to salvage at the market in exchange for rations.

Rey talks until Finn’s head swims, and he dreams of a little girl sitting on a yellow sand dune, staring at the sky.

* * *

The dreams scare him because he’s not supposed to have them.

Stormtroopers are conditioned, but more than that, they’re programmed.  When Finn hears _march_ , he straightens, clenches up, and prepares to do so.  When he hears _aim_ , he reaches for his sidearm.  When he hears _fire_ , he braces himself to shoot, not just at a target but at a person.  He’s not meant to have emotions, or doubt, or hesitation.  He’s meant to be the closest thing to a human robot there is.

So, the dreams aren’t supposed to be there.  It’s proof, in Finn’s mind, that the conditioning Captain Phasma and every other First Order officer authorized has broken, and for that, he’s grateful.  But when he hears about dreams--and he hears about them a lot, now that they’ve met the Resistance, where everyone has a dream--they sound so wonderful.  Finn wished his were more like theirs, but they’re not.  He tries to ignore them and carry on.

* * *

He doesn’t dream of Poe until after he sees him again, alive and well on D’Qar.

Poe smiles at him, tells him to keep his jacket, tells him he looks good in it, and Finn’s subconscious takes that information and turns it against him.

In his dreams, Poe doesn’t make it.  Poe’s dead, his skin cut and bloodied and bruised.  He lays amongst the trees on the Starkiller Base, shot down, dead.  Poe’s dead.

But he isn’t: he grabs Finn by that damn jacket, pulls him down so that Finn breathes in death and rot.

“You didn’t save me,” Poe says.  His breathing is ragged, and there are maggots amongst his teeth.  “You promised.”

Finn can’t say anything because Poe is dead and he hadn’t saved him.  He hears the low _burr_ of a lightsaber, and the rush of air as blasters are fired.  He knows that if he doesn’t run, he won’t make it.

He stays where he is, kneeling dumbly over Poe, until it’s over.

* * *

“Are you all right?”

Poe asks Finn this just as he’s getting ready to go.  He’ll be going with Han to get Rey from the Starkiller Base.  He told a lie, and it feels so much worse than telling Rey that he was a big deal with the Resistance because this time, there are lives on the line.  If he can’t get Han through the security, the Resistance pilots won’t stand a chance and everyone dies.

But Finn can’t risk Rey.  She saved him on Jakku, has saved him every moment since then.  He can’t abandon her, not like this, not when he knows just what his ex-allies are capable of.

“Of course,” Finn says, “got my jacket, don’t I?” He winks, and Poe smiles, just a little.

“We’re counting on you, buddy,” he says, clapping Finn on the shoulder.  Finn smiles and boards the Millennium Falcon.  As soon as he’s out of sight of everyone, he holds his head in his hands and hyperventilates. 

* * *

 Finn has a variation on that dream on the way back to the Starkiller Base.  They have a little time, and he only closes his eyes for a minute, but it’s enough.

Rey’s dead.  She’s been left out in the snow as a message for the Resistance.  Finn can’t see any blood, but he can’t find a pulse, either.

“We have to get inside,” Han’s yelling.  “I thought you knew the security!”

Rey’s dead.  Finn can’t get them inside.  The First Order is charging the superweapon, the thing that can annihilate entire systems in one fell swoop.  Above, Resistance pilots crash into the shields.  Their debris can’t even fall through, but Finn watches as they hit, exploding like tiny fireworks, each one the cost of a life.  Poe’s up there, he knows.  So is everyone else who was counting on him.  He’s failed them all.

* * *

Han wakes him when they land.

“Get up, sleepyhead, we’ve got a planet to bomb,” he says.  Finn stands, unsteady, and forces himself to go outside.  He can do this, he tells himself.  He’s quickly forgetting the dream, but he knows the gist of it.  He can still see Rey’s face in the snow, her eyes closed.  He can see the pilots dying so far overhead.  He has to do this, so that his dream doesn’t come true.

* * *

Rey doesn’t die.  Poe doesn’t die.

Finn allows himself these victories, even as he’s sick on the flight away from the remains of the Starkiller Base.  He can hear Chewbacca’s roar ringing in his ears, can see the look on Kylo Ren’s face when he fully embraced the Dark Side.

Finn has plenty of dark thoughts on the ride back, but he does not sleep.  He cannot sleep.  He doesn’t need any more horrible visions.

* * *

D’Qar is a disquieting mix of celebratory and mournful.  General Organa maintains her composure, but several others of her cabinet look amongst themselves asking the obvious question: what now?

Rey wants to find Skywalker.  Finn knows that she feels guilty about Han, too, maybe even more than he does.  She’s the Jedi, or whatever.  Finn still doesn’t know too much about any of all of that, except that he’d rather not use that lightsaber ever again--he’ll take shooting from a distance with a preference for not at all, thanks.

Finn doesn’t think it’s a good idea, Rey going off with only Chewbacca and a droid, but she won’t be talked out of it.  Whatever Ren said to her is under her skin, and Finn knows resolve when he sees it.

* * *

The night before she leaves, he dreams.

He can’t remember upon waking what it is, but he’s obviously screamed loud enough to wake the dead because Poe Dameron is standing in his quarters with a blaster and a terrified look on his face.  When he realizes what’s happened, Poe curses and comes to Finn’s side.

“Finn?” he asks.  His breath is coming too fast.  Finn realizes belatedly that his own is coming even faster, and he struggles to slow it down.  “Finn, Finn,” he says, cursing once.  He comes to sit on Finn’s bed.  Another pilot comes by the door and Poe shakes his head, directing him away.  The pilot closes the door to leave Finn and Poe to themselves.

“It’s all right, buddy,” Poe says.  He’s got a hand on Finn’s shoulder, anchoring him.  “It was just a dream.”

Finn wants to cry.  It was bad enough that Rey had seen him like this, but _Poe_ \--

“Let me in,” Finn hears from outside, then, “You will open this door and let me in.”

Just like that, Rey’s inside, rushing to Finn’s side.   _Jedi mind trick,_  Finn’s mind helpfully supplies, but he can’t speak.  He’s hyperventilating, can’t breathe, can’t _breathe_ \--

Rey kneels on the floor and takes one of Finn’s hands.  She wipes away some of the sweat that’s accumulated on his forehead and looks to Poe--Poe, who’s busy wrapping his entire body around Finn’s from behind.  Finn thinks he’d find it weird if it weren’t so strangely comforting.  Poe’s got one arm looped around Finn, his hand splayed across his chest, and he’s got one leg around both of Finn’s.  Between Poe and Rey, Finn feels encapsulated on all sides.

“Safe,” Poe says, speaking to the back of Finn’s head.  “You’re safe.”

Poe talks about the first time he flew an X-Wing--nearly crashed it into the loading bay, he was so cocky--and Rey talks about how she learned to build one.  Finn falls asleep like that, and when he wakes, Rey’s on the floor, still holding his hand, and Poe’s snoring pleasantly behind him.  Finn smiles to himself and goes back to sleep.

When he wakes a second time, there’s a note in Finn’s hand rather than Rey.  The handwriting is blocky and childish, but Finn can’t judge because he never learned to write at all.  He reads:

_Didn’t want to wake you.  Headed for Luke.  Take care.  You are not alone._

He doesn’t tell anyone about it.  If someone had asked, he’d say he’d thrown it away, but the reality is that he’s stashed it in one of the pockets of Poe’s old jacket, the thing Finn keeps with him at all times.

* * *

Poe doesn’t talk about it, but Finn finds out that he’s moved his quarters to be closer to Finn’s.  He’s embarrassed at first, then grateful, because each and every night, without fail, before Finn goes to bed, Poe comes to visit.  He talks about places he’s been, places he’d like to go.  Finn doesn’t have much to add, but Poe can carry a conversation all by himself.  As a pilot, first for the Republic and then for the Resistance, Poe’s seen lots of places.  They way he describes them, Finn’s right there with him.

“We’ll go sometime, how about that?” Poe says once, after describing Bespin.

Finn feels something in his chest at that, something that makes him say, “Really?”

Poe laughs.  Finn likes his laugh.  “Yeah,” Poe says, “really.”

“All right,” Finn says.  It feels redundant to say it, but it’s worth it for Poe’s brilliant grin.


End file.
